"New Orleans Intifada"

A portrait of a small but active Palestinian/Arab community in New Orleans is available on ColorLines as a web exclusive.

The above article also brought my attention to the fact that students at Hampshire College were successful in getting the university to divest from six corporations who provide military equipment and services to the Israeli army (Caterpillar, United Technologies, General Electric, ITT Corporation, Motorola, and Terex). The first divestment of its kind in the U.S. by a university.

Gaza

You'll notice I was on a hiatus from blogging during the recent Gaza invasion. This was not deliberate timing.

Israel is now claiming it acted in accordance with international law, while simultaneously, "Norway's public prosecutors said on Wednesday they would study a complaint filed by a group of lawyers accusing Israeli leaders of war crimes over a military offensive in Gaza last year that killed hundreds of civilians."

Meanwhile an already battered Gaza is dealing with the devasting fallout. The rounds of denials and accusations must seem tired and increasingly futile.

On the more hopeful end of things, however, the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign has scored some recent victories. But we also need more. We need positive investments and partnerships. Not the politically contingent kinds that are meant to sow division.

What are the challenges?

Mustafa says there cannot be economic prosperity unless hundreds of Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank are removed, an airport is built and a sea port opened in Gaza.

...

"I do not see how we can have real economy ... to absorb the huge number of those who are not employed." Unemployment among the Palestinians was running at about 27 percent last year.

...

Palestinian farmers have little access to the fertile fields of the Jordan Valley, which constitute about one-third of the total area of the West Bank land, Sinokrot notes. Areas under Palestinian self-rule are classified as Area A. But in so-called Area B lands, Israel has security control, while Palestinians have civil control. In this bewildering patchwork, there is little territorial continuity between A and B. Most major Palestinian companies are in Area A, creating an artificial land shortage in which prices have rocketed. "It's time that classification of our land as Area C come to an end," said Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Since the Oslo accords, international powers have advocated a Palestinian state alongside Israel. "Economic peace won't work," said Mustafa. "The economy can prosper only in the context of an appropriate political environment, where you have stability, sovereignty and control your own land and borders." [Source]


Also: Tourism minister tries to deter pope from meeting Sakhnin mayor

Middle Eastern peoples and racial categorization in the U.S.

Two recent books of note recently on the racial categorization of Middle Eastern-Americans.

The first is currently available, Whitewashed: America's Invisible Middle East Minority by John Tehranian.

An excerpt: "The dualistic and contested ontology of the Middle Eastern racial condition therefore creates an unusual paradox,: writes Tehranian, “Reified as the other, Americans of Middle Eastern descent do not enjoy the benefits of white privilege. Yet, as white under the law, they are denied the fruits of remedial action.”

The second is due out on May 6, 2009. It is Between Arab and White: Race and Ethnicity in the Early Syrian American Diaspora by Sarah Gualtieri.

On a related tip, these ideas are present in the mainstream news, thanks to a campaign by university students in California to expand the available ethnic identification categories at their school to include Middle Eastern students, rather than subsume them under 'Caucasian'.

My initial thoughts about the above story: What's really interesting is how often, in the article, 'white' becomes a synonym for economic and social power, though without the explicit recognition of that construct.The flip side is that by implication, to be anything but 'white' is to be 'disadvantaged'. The reason why there seems to be such grappling with the issue is because Arabs in the U.S. are not 'white' yet relatively affluent in monetary terms. Of course, there is much more to being 'disadvantaged' than money, but it's an indicator at the least - and the one that seems to be implicitly invoked in the article. Interestingly, East Asians are in a similar place, but that comparison is not explored, perhaps because of how race is written onto the body, and Middle Eastern peoples present the additional "problem" of heterogeneous skin tones. The earliest immigrants were largely Syrian/Lebanese and Christian, probably lighter skin (thus having a 'shot' at being white if they could accumulate enough capital, much like groups like the Irish, Italians etc.) than many other Middle Eastern peoples, hence the legal confusion that has now become entrenched. It will be interesting to see how it develops. And extremely telling that this discussion has garnered attention as the other-ing of Middle Eastern people is at something like an all-time high in American history.

Round-up

1) I Can't Think Straight has a release date! The film will be shown in theatres in New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto on November 21, 2008. Not sure how long before it hits other cities.

Shamim Sarif's other film The World Unseen has also been generally released and is currently playing in Toronto. This week's edition of NOW Magazine has a short interview with the director/author.

























2) I Can't Think Straight's release comes on the heels of the conclusion of the first ever Toronto Palestine Film Festival. The film festival had both a sold out opening and closing night, with Salt of This Sea and Slingshot Hip-Hop on either end of the festival.

Kan Ya Makan recorded interviews with both Suheir Hammad (Salt of This Sea) and Bashar Da'as (Driving to Zigzigland) which I hope to post up here soon.

Watching Suheir Hammad on screen had me very surprised that she was a first-time actress. Definitely a very impressive performance. The story itself is nuanced, realistic - the Palestinian characters are not nostalgic in the same way as the character from Brooklyn, for example. The film is the official selection for Palestine at the Oscars, and a huge achievement for Palestinian film in general, but also, as Suheir Hammad noted at the opening press conference, the gaze is female.

Driving to Zigzigland is packed with humour, though it does drag at parts. Bashar Da'as is currently an actor in Hollywood. At the press conference, he spoke of one audition he attended, for CSI: Miami. Turns out the role was one for an al-Qaeda operative working with neo-Nazis.












3) Violent past a tough act to follow, Palestinian finds
Reformed guerrilla was granted amnesty, but his former life is preventing a return to a theatre he loves



4) Rawi Hage's second novel Cockroach continues to pick up nominations. It's an excellent read - I couldn't put it down. I think he is now up for every major book prize in Canada?



5) This is older but I can't resist....Palestinian football now has a home.


6) The International Herald Tribune reports: "The Palestinian economy has "incredible potential" that could be unleashed if Israel eases restrictions on Palestinian movement, the area's World Bank chief said Wednesday, a day after a high-level World Bank delegation inaugurated a sewage storage facility in a rare trip to Hamas-ruled Gaza."

See also: Telecom companies eager to explore Palestinian market despite obstacles


7) 3 Palestinian-Israeli youth are arrested in connection to the Acre/Akka riots. The Palestine News Network reports on the experiences of Palestinian families during the unrest.

On Obama

The United States (and by extension, the world) has witnessed the historic victory of Barack Hussein Obama as the next President of the United States. Do I really even need to link it?

My wonderful friends held an election night get together, and the conversation turned to the impact on Palestinians. During the course of Obamamania I've shifted between the most cynical of point of views (Obama could be worse than Bush, he has more to prove, and even Bush was critized from corners of the anti-Palestinian ranks) to the more pragmatic (you can't win an American election without some pro-Israel leanings *note: the difference in terminology I'm using, btw).

I left the party with mixed feelings - there was so much beauty to the moment, the joy, the hope, the coming together, the world watching, the voter turnout, but the other part kept gnawing at me - this is great for Americans, great for people of colour in white-dominated societies facing that glass ceiling, but what about everyone else?

The Electronic Intifada reports on Obama's pick for the White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Israel Emanuel

In Congress, Emanuel has been a consistent and vocal pro-Israel hardliner, sometimes more so than President Bush. In June 2003, for example, he signed a letter criticizing Bush for being insufficiently supportive of Israel. "We were deeply dismayed to hear your criticism of Israel for fighting acts of terror," Emanuel, along with 33 other Democrats wrote to Bush. The letter said that Israel's policy of assassinating Palestinian political leaders "was clearly justified as an application of Israel's right to self-defense" ("Pelosi supports Israel's attacks on Hamas group," San Francisco Chronicle, 14 June 2003).

Is this why Ibrahim Abu Jayyeb and his friends in Gaza spent their time phone campaigning for Obama?

I'm really wondering what Rashid Khalidi is thinking about all this.

A Palestinian gem passes away

Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish has died at the age of 67 in a Texas hospital, following complications related to open-heart surgery. Interestingly, Edward Said also passed away at the age of 67. And what a significant number for Palestinians! I'd like to think that even in death both Darwish and Said are urging us to acknowledge; to remember.

This is a great cultural loss, not just for Palestinians, but for the world generally. His impact has been wide and inter-generational. I read his poems in their translated-to-English form from my Toronto home; my mother recalls once visiting his home in Beirut when she lived there.

Darwish's death comes on the heels of the death of Youssef Chahine, another significant culture-maker.

On an unrelated note, this week's reading for me...The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.

Palestinians at the movies

In an earlier blog post, I compiled a list of notable Arab-Canadians. In expanding on this theme, we will move beyond just looking at Canada.

Some of you may know about The L Word, full of high heels, high drama and hot encounters.

Still, some of you some people may know that one of the writers for the show is a woman named Cherien Dabis, a Palestinian-American.



In 2006, Dabis directed and produced a short film named Itmanah (Make A Wish). Among the screenings is one at the 5th annual Dubai film festival, taking place this December.

According to the Internet Movie Database, Dabis has a project in post-production entitled Amreeka, slated for a 2009 release. Looks like this one involved filming in Ramallah.



In other film news, a trailer for Shamim Sarif's I Can't Think Straight is now on YouTube. I hope this means the originally-slated for 2007 release is on its way.